Southern Water is investigating after millions of polluted plastic beads washed up on Camber Sands beach, threatening an “environmental disaster”.
The local MP said the biobeads could have a serious impact on marine life, with fears that rare marine life, including seabirds, porpoises and seals, could swallow them and die.
Helena Dollimore, MP for Hastings and Rye, suspects the beads may have been spilled by a local water treatment center and has written to Southern Water’s chief executive, Lawrence Gosden, demanding an explanation.
Camber Sands, located in East Sussex, is one of England’s most beloved beaches, with rare dune habitats and vast expanses of golden sand.
Volunteers have been racing against time to remove the beads and fill dozens of bags with plastic waste, but the scale of pollution seeping out is so great it is unlikely they will be able to remove it all.
Andy Dinsdale, from the Plastic Pollution Campaign Group Strandliners“This is the worst pollution event I’ve ever seen,” he said on Saturday. “It’s polluted plastic. Marine animals will ingest small plastics once they’re in the sea, and they’ll attract algae, and they’ll smell like food, effectively.”
“Once they eat it, that’s it: They can’t get it out. It will float to the surface. It will create a spot that attracts drowning seabirds.”
He said the cleanup efforts were exhausting. “Yesterday I was there to clean it up. We’re really trying to piece together the timeline and story of this horrific event. It’s terrible.”
“It’s so small that from a very long distance, the beach looks normal. But once you get closer, you see there are millions of black globules, hiding under the seaweed. It’s an impossible task – volunteers have been dredging the water for days, and they will continue to do so, but we won’t be able to get them all off. This is the worst I’ve ever seen a polluted beach.”
Dollimore, the Labor and Co-operative MP who joined the clean-up effort, said: “The sheer number of plastic beads washing up here threatens to cause an environmental catastrophe. These biobeads are deadly to marine life and wildlife, and we are already seeing more dead seals, fish and porpoises washing up on the beach.”
“Local residents are working tirelessly to remove as many beads as possible, but it is a race against time. Southern Water must urgently determine whether their local wastewater plants could be the source of these vital beads, and I have asked them to allocate all available resources to support the cleanup in the meantime.”
The beads are also dangerous to dogs because they contain a large number of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are known to have carcinogenic properties, and often contain toxins including lead, antimony and bromine.
A Southern Water spokesman said: “We are working closely with the Environment Agency and Rother District Council to investigate the source of the plastic beads that washed up on Camber Beach. This investigative work is ongoing.”
“Ruther District Council is leading the beach clean-up, using specialists with a vehicle equipped with suction equipment to remove the beads. We are also supporting the clean-up.
“We carried out water quality sampling at the beach, which showed no impact on environmental water quality. This data has been shared with Rother District Council and the Environment Agency.”
The Environment Agency has been contacted for comment.